There's little to get the pulse racing in terms of quality the weekend before the Derby but there are one or two nice little handicaps to get stuck into around the country and they are headed by the 3.45 at York (Sportingbet.com Sprint Heritage Handicap).
This is a really competitive five-furlong sprint with a mix of seasoned campaigners and those slowly progressing up the ranks, and it's a similar story with the jockeys on board as a host of good claimers blend in with the more experienced.
Amy Ryan is good value for her 5lb claim and she can go well on her father's horse Peak District providing he has recovered from Thursday's exertions at Lingfield, while David Probert takes a useful 3lb off Siren's Gift for Andrew Balding.
She can be a real pinger of the stalls and this track should suit her prominent style, while the form of her narrow defeat in a listed contest at Bath last time was magnificently franked by winner Look Busy who beat Borderlescott in the Temple Stakes last weekend.
She should be in the mix but is disputing favouritism at the time of writing and her two from 22 record hardly inspires confidence at a track she has been beaten at three times before.
However, she is a decent pace angle in the race and brings me to 18-1 selection Ishetoo who looks overpriced for a number of reasons.
Towards the end of the Dante meeting the leading sprinters were all coming up the stands side, but the draw bias seemed to favour those drawn low earlier in the week and I don't think it's going to be much of a factor on Saturday.
He's drawn 15, but that's only important because he's close to Siren's Gift (13) and he should get a nice pull into the race, as Internationaldebut (14) is likely to be out of the way quickly and be held up.
Ishetoo was on the wrong side in the six-furlong sprint won by Valery Borzov at the Dante meeting, but he was prominent enough for a good majority of the race on soft ground that wouldn't have suited him.
He's better on a faster surface and a strongly-run five furlongs should be right up his street.
He stayed on well to take third in this race last year off exactly the same mark of 93, and while Michael Stainton took off 3lbs then he has Jamie Kyne taking 7lb off his back this time around.
He's another useful claimer and with everything coming together for his horse the 18-1 available with a number of layers looks worth snapping up.
Preview posted at 1855BST on 29/05/2009.
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook
